Angry Robot Announce 2015 Open Door Period

Rhoda Nightingale

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YES! I'm in the polishing-the-final-draft stages for a manuscript that's already been through the beta-wringer! I AM DOING THIS!!
 

phantasy

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Omg, this is coming up fast! Good thing we have two months to send it in. I don't think my book is exactly their cup of tea, but it can't hurt to try. Anyone else going for it?
 

Taylor Harbin

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Dang, and I don't have any novels ready...even close to ready.
 

phantasy

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How many authors did they sign last year? Anyone know?
 

PeteMC

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Half a dozen in total I think but most were agented. As far as I know I was the only one from the last Open Door
 

phantasy

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Half a dozen in total I think but most were agented. As far as I know I was the only one from the last Open Door

Firstly, congrats! That's quite an achievement!

Secondly, hmm. I'm sure thousands applied, so that's a really, really low success rate. I might be better off getting an agent first. Good to know.
 

GeoWriter

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I'm assuming they don't want resubs even if substantially revised?
 

PeteMC

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Firstly, congrats! That's quite an achievement!

Secondly, hmm. I'm sure thousands applied, so that's a really, really low success rate. I might be better off getting an agent first. Good to know.

Thank you! It wasn't thousands though - five hundred and something I think.

I'm assuming they don't want resubs even if substantially revised?

I wouldn't know I'm afraid but I'm sure they won't mind you asking. They're doing an AMA on reddit scifi one day next week I think.
 

Bolero

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Firstly, congrats! That's quite an achievement!

Secondly, hmm. I'm sure thousands applied, so that's a really, really low success rate. I might be better off getting an agent first. Good to know.

I was told years ago that making it out of the slush pile was one or two in a thousand per annum.
BUT
That a chunk of the thousand were people who'd submitted to the wrong publisher (as in romance to sf imprint).

Also that those figures applied to agents as well.

What I'm finding encouraging is that publishers' Open Doors at least some of the time, are for unagented writers.
 
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Aggy B.

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What I'm finding encouraging is that publishers' Open Doors at least some of the time, are for unagented writers.

"Open Door" periods are, by default, open to unagented authors. That's the whole point. Most publishers are always open to agented work. (Exceptions being small pubs that are open to unagented submissions, but also have closed periods.) That's why many of them state that agented work should not be submitted through "open door" submissions, but through the regular channels.
 

PeteMC

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What I'm finding encouraging is that publishers' Open Doors at least some of the time, are for unagented writers.

That's really the definition of an Open Door period - allowing unagented authors to submit to a publisher who normally only look at work pitched to them by agents.

Not every publisher does this, and others like Tor have a permanently open slush pile although I don't know of anyone actually getting picked up from that. It may have happened, I don't know.

EDIT: Aggy just said that...
 

Bolero

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I thought at times some publishers were closed to all submissions - including agented? As in looking at nothing.
 

Aggy B.

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I thought at times some publishers were closed to all submissions - including agented? As in looking at nothing.

Those are typically only smaller publishers. Folks like TOR, DAW and Baen never close to agented work. (Though in a given year they may have fewer open slots depending on contracted series having release dates and such.) For example, the Tor.com novella imprint is currently closed to unagented submissions. But when I queried them regarding a particular project I wanted them to look at I was told they will always take submissions from an agent.
 

phantasy

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Don't forget the Open Door opens tomorrow morning - who's in?

I was...now I'm thinking I'm better off getting an agent first and having them help me polish it further. My novel is good, but I'm sure it could be better and it feels like this open submission wants something spotless anyway. Esp with such low rates of getting in.

So...yeah.
 

PeteMC

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Well there's no reason you can't submit and keep looking for an agent at the same time, they're not asking for exclusives :)
 

Cramp

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This is on my To-do list for today.
 

Cramp

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And the box is ticked. Got to find some more fingers to cross with the Hodderscape still going...
 

Saoirse

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I'm in. I'm not sure if I can finish this revision by 1/31, but if I can, it'll be awesome. If not, well, it's the kick in the pants I needed to get this novel revised (10 years old!).
 

Glyax

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Hmmm, I'm 70,000 words into a sci-fi novel....but it's not complete...should I try to enter this and see if they take me up on it as I finish it? I have another that is complete...but I wrote it with the idea of turning it into a comic/anime....and I have an artist already turning it into a comic. Would it be frowned upon to submit the story to become a book in that case?